Lost in the Multiverse
by COYoteProductions
Summary: Another collaboration with Marioninja1. His side of the story is connected to his account.
1. Chapter 1

Lost in the Multiverse

Chapter 1

By: Xan075

"Yo, Samus!" James greeted me. He was a big guy but his friend, standing next to him, was short. Both friend and lackey, Nathaniel was definitely backing him up.

James had always had it in for me, since he met me. It may have been fate, maybe bad luck, or possibly he was just a bastard by nature, but he had always made fun of my name.

"I don't want any trouble, James," I replied.

"Oh, really?" He asked sarcastically. "Well, you've got it. This is _my_ street!"

I had to talk fast. James I could take, but him and Nathaniel at the same time? Not so much.

"Oh, come on. I'm just walking through. I don't want to do this."

"Too bad!" He shoved my shoulders. I stayed in place.

"Looks like there's a problem," My friend Jeremiah, who had just appeared from nowhere said.

James cracked his knuckles, Nathaniel copying him soon after.

"What a great way to start the week," Jeremiah said sarcastically.

"Not for most people," I responded. "We're just lucky."

Indeed it was, but not unexpectedly. The past week, there had been more fights between the students at the school, more anger between adults, and general tension among everyone than usual. Chaos was in the air, and this fight was just one byproduct.

"You want to go against the big one?" Jeremiah asked, talking about James.

"Sure. The bigger they are, the harder they fight."

"Right, then." Jeremiah immediately charged at Nathaniel, and James swung a punch at me.

I blocked his fist with my forearm, and delivered my strongest shovel-hook punch under his rib cage. He doubled over, jumping back. I allowed him to stand back up, and he tried to bring his knee into my crotch. I saw this, and brought my knee up, hitting him in the shin. The pain from this left James on the ground.

"James," I told him, while he was laying on the ground. "Remember my name: Ianus (like Yanus) Lepidus Maro."

"Fuck you," he groaned.

A kick to his side shut him up.

I joined Jeremiah, who had beaten Nathaniel first.

"You okay?" I asked.

He ignored my question.

"This week's been pretty weird, huh?" He asked.

"Yeah," I answered. "Something's going to happen. The air is filled with anticipation."

"Ain't that the truth, brother? Maybe it'll be something good."

He said goodbye when we got to his house, and I continued onto my apartment.

"Hello!" My little sister called.

Phaedra, my "sister," was actually just a girl that I had found on the street. Now fourteen, she had been eleven when I had found her, wandering on the street, stealing to live. She went to school like a normal girl now, but if child welfare ever heard of her living with me, I would be in prison for a while. They don't exactly like seventeen year-olds taking care of other teenagers.

"Did you have any dinner?" I asked.

"No. I was waiting for you," she said innocently.

"Good. I got you something on the way home."

I handed her a bag of some fast-food, bought on my way home. She looked at me closer.

"Were you in a fight?" She asked me.

"...Yeah. That idiot James finally decided to try something, and was backed up by Nathaniel."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Jeremiah turned up at the last moment, took on Nate."

"Well, that was good of him."

"Yeah. Sometimes, I don't know what I would do without him."

_Later_

"You know," Phaedra said, looking up from her manga, "I'm not sure about this new character Kyle. He's just too, well, crazy."

"Frankly, Phaedra, I'm not sure what you're talking about. He seems to be an okay addition to the cast."

"Oh, be quiet! You don't know what you're talking-What's that?"

I looked outside, where everything was covered in darkness.

"I don't know, but I don't think it could be anything good."

Suddenly, I heard a woman scream downstairs.

"What's going on?"

"Damn! Phaedra, stay here, and lock the door. I'm going to help her."

I left our apartment, and went to the apartment below ours'. The door was ajar and the lights were off, so I nudged the door open fully.

"You okay, Miss?"

I saw something moving across the room, and as I approached, I saw that it was something that looked like a small shadow, with glowing yellow eyes, sitting on top of the unconscious woman. It looked towards me, and faded into the ground.

"What the-"

A dark spot on the ground stopped moving beside me, and the shadow-creature raised out of the ground, where it was kicked in the face by Yours' Truly.

After picking itself off the ground, the little shadow was surrounded by two small black clouds, out of which two more identical shadow-beings appeared.

"So...who's first?" I asked.

They all three ran at me, but when I kicked at one, it grabbed onto my boot. The other two advanced on me, as I was held in place by the first shadow.

"No!" I shouted, and, in a blinding flash of light, a giant key appeared in my hand. "Well, okay."

The two shadows closed in, and I swung at one. As the giant key made contact, the shadow disappeared in a black cloud.

"Definitely cool," I remarked. I swung the key at the other two, destroying them with a mere touch also.

I checked on the woman: unconscious, but alive; then I went over to the light switch, and flipped it; the light switched on, and I saw the giant key properly for the first time.

It was more like a caricature of a key than an actual one, but it's hand-guard was crimson, and the rest of it had was black, except the ridge at the end, which was shining silver. A chain hanging off of the pommel had nothing on the other end.

"Well, that's awesome," I remarked unemotionally. "Now, Miss, I know that you can't hear me, but stay safe. I'll lock your door on the way out."

When I got back to my house, I turned saw that the door was open.

"Oh, hell no!" I said, and charged into my apartment.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I rushed into my apartment, raising my key-weapon over my head.

"We gotta go," said Jeremiah, who's presence stopped me in my tracks.

I nodded.

"Phaedra, follow us," I instructed.

As we walked into the hallway, we were attacked by a few of the shadow-creatures.

"Shit, I can't keep this up, man," Jeremiah complained. "I'm getting tired."

"You've got me now," I responded. "I can take a few."

While Jeremiah opened the fight with a trademark jibe, I knocked a shadow on the underside of the head by bringing my key up. I brought it down to finish it off. I turned to slash another, and bumped my shoulder painfully on the wall while trying to fight around Jeremiah.

"Nice!" Phaedra complimented us when the shadows were destroyed.

"We need to get to open ground," I recommended to Jeremiah. "It's too hard to fight in close quarters with these keys."

He nodded, and we ran to the main door, taking out any shadows that we encountered. When we reached the main door, Jeremiah opened it, and we saw something shocking.

"Holy shit!" I cursed.

The entire world in front of us was disappearing, blackening.

"What's going on?" Phaedra asked, almost to herself.

I saw that Jeremiah was upset, but knew that there was nothing that I could do. Suddenly, though, he lifted the key, and pointed it straight ahead. He turned it, and a circle of white light opened in front of the encroaching darkness.

"Is that...a portal?" Phaedra asked.

Jeremiah shrugged. "Should we go through it?"

"Do we have any other choice?" I asked in return.

"Guess not," Jeremiah answered. He jumped epically into the white portal.

Phaedra and I followed, walking calmly into the circle.

_Inside the Portal_

It was cold, and snow was covering the ground. It looked like we were next to a park, in the middle of a modern city.

"Where the hell are we?" Phaedra asked, breaking her promise about cursing yet again.

Jeremiah stood up, having landed face-first after leaping through the portal.

"It's freakin' cold," he complained.

"Man up!" Phaedra commanded him jokingly.

"Hey! I'm short, so I don't hold in much heat," Jeremiah informed her.

All of a sudden, Jeremiah was distracted, so I followed his line of sight to the portal, and saw a few of the shadows jump through before it closed.

They were all the same as before, accept one shadow was larger: it looked like it was wearing a knight's helmet, too.

I ran towards the larger one, determined to destroy it, when I heard a large _thump!_ I turned and looked, and spotted a woman, slightly older than I, with dyed hair and an _extremely_ large mallet. A guy the same age (possibly her boyfriend) with a shirt advertising fruits was behind her, looking scared and amazed at the same time.

'Okay,' I thought, 'I have more help. Time to kill some shadows!'

I ran to the knight-headed shadow, swept its' legs, and brought my key down upon its' head, destroying it instantaneously. A smaller one jumped at me; I blocked its' attack with my key, then used the key to slam it into the sidewalk.

"Eat the pavement!" I shouted, as I curb-stomped its' body, vaporizing it.

"Damn!" Phaedra admired. "Where can I get one of those?"

"You'll have to wait; these things just materialize when they want."

We walked over to Jeremiah, who was talking with the woman, who slid her mallet into her tiny purse.

"I can't keep fighting shadows like this," Jeremiah complained.

"You mean Heartless?" The girl, who I would later learn was named Ramona Flowers asked.

"You know what these things are?" I realized.

"Yeah. Don't they teach you this in Canada."

'What's Canada?' I wondered.

"We're not exactly from your world," Jeremiah admitted.

"Well, then," Ramona said exhaustedly. "Things _must_ be bad."

"We don't exactly know what we're doing, other than running," I informed her. "Can you tell us anything?"

"I will, but first we have to go inside," Ramona answered. "It's too cold for this to take place outside. I know a place."

As we began walking to Ramona's house, I heard a radio from an apartment above us, playing music like I had never heard before.

A woman was singing:

_Hello, again/ Friend of a friend/ I knew you when/ Our common goal, was waiting for/ The world to end!_

"Man," I shook my head, "We really are in another dimension."

"You don't have music like this in your dimension?" Ramona's friend asked.

"No. What is it called?"

"I, um, think that it's just rock. I'm Scott, by the way."

"Rock doesn't sound quite like that where I come from," I said. "Ianus is my name."

"Are you guys okay?" Scott asked.

"As well as someone could be after fighting those Heartless-things and crossing dimensional borders, I guess," I answered.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As Jeremiah and Phaedra ate their "Canadian breakfast," I munched quietly on garlic toast, while Jeremiah complimented everything on his plate.

Jeremiah told Ramona and Scott our story, and vowed to get his family back.

"I didn't know that there _were _other dimensions," Scott cut in.

"Neither than we," I replied, "until about half an hour ago."

"Did you ever tell him about this stuff?" Jeremiah asked Ramona.

"Never had reason to, really," Ramona shrugged.

"So, what does the music back in your world sound like?" Scott asked.

"Well, based off of what I heard, we have about the same types of instruments, but here it just sounds...odd. The rhythm works differently."

"Hey!" Phaedra interrupted. "You should probably listen to Ramona. She seems to know everything useful to us."

I listened to what Ramona and Jeremiah were saying:

"What's Kingdom Hearts?" Jeremiah asked.

"A door. There's a lot of stuff I could tell you about it, but, to keep it simple, you shut and lock it, and your world comes back," Ramona answered.

I turned back to Scott and Phaedra.

"Phaedra! That's what we need to do! Lock Kingdom Hearts, then go home!"

"You make it sound so easy," Phaedra replied sarcastically. "We don't even know where this 'door' is! It could be anywhere-here, the next dimension we look, or even in _our_ old dimension!"

Suddenly, a presence entered the atmosphere around us: everyone felt it. Ramona looked at Scott.

"Get your bass."

"How will _that_ help?" I asked. My key appeared in my hand as I stood up from the diner's booth that we were sitting in.

Jeremiah suddenly walked out onto the street, and was assaulted by a crew of Heartless.

"Get out there!" Ramona ordered me. "Use your keyblade!"

'Keyblade?' I wondered.

I ran outside, and started killing a few indiscriminate Heartless, until I looked down the street: hundreds of the things, some too large to comprehend, others like the small-fries that we were killing.

"Jeremiah!" I shouted. "We have to go! There's too many of them!"

I heard feedback; Scott had plugged in his bass guitar, and was playing a fast riff. A portal opened above the street.

I turned to Ramona.

"Where's Phaedra?" I asked her, when I didn't see Phaedra.

"It's too dangerous for her to go with you," she informed me. "She'll be safe with me and Scott."

"Hold on! I can't let you do tha-" I was cut off, as I was shoved through the portal by Ramona, landing headfirst into-

_A Hot, Humid Jungle_

I sat up quickly, finding myself in tall grass (up to my waist if I was standing), and looked back; the portal had disappeared.

"Bitch," I muttered. I stood up, right as two soldiers rounded a corner.

_Weh!_

A sound came out of nowhere as they saw me.

"Who's there!" One soldier shouted, and pointed his gun at me. I put my hands in the air.

"Did you happen to hear that loud sound?" I asked.

"What are you talking abou-" The soldiers crumpled to the ground.

"Does that mean that I'm off the hoo-" _I_ was interrupted as I was tackled to the ground by what appeared to be an old man in a skin-tight leather jumpsuit.

"Who are you working for?" A smoky-voiced old man in a skin-tight leather jumpsuit asked me, as he pointed a silenced pistol in my face and sat on my stomach.

'Well, this is unpleasant,' I thought.

"Who are you working for?" He asked again.

"I work as a Red Cross doctor," I devised quickly.

The old man back-handed me across the mouth.

"If you lie again, it'll be the last thing that you do," he threatened.

"Okay, man! I came through an enter-dimensional portal, from a place called Canada, and am running from the Heartless to find Kingdom Hearts and now, I guess, my Sister, who is actually a girl that I got off the street."

The old man thought about my story for a moment.

"Who do these 'Heartless' work for?"

"I don't know."

The old man put a finger to his ear for a few seconds.

"Fine," he said after a long conversation, seemingly to himself, and removed the finger from his ear. He held out a pistol.

"Oh! No thanks, man. I have a weapon."

He looked at me for a minute.

"Fine. I'm Snake," He introduced himself. "I have to rescue a doctor, Naomi Hunter, and Otacon-the guy on my earpiece- seems to think that you may be worth leaving alive. We'll see."

"So, where _is_ this doctor?"

"Past the enemy camp. Follow me, or you'll die."

"Well, when you put it like that, what can I-"

Snake put his pistol under my jaw.

"Spout another lame joke like that, and your brains will coat a tree or two."

"Yes, sir!" I responded.

_The Shack_

It hadn't been easy, but Snake had gotten me (barely) through an enemy camp and an onslaught of bullets and mortars to a building where the doctor was being held.

"Man, that was crazy!" I said when we were inside the building.

"Shhh..." he said.

We walked into a room where a woman in a medical coat was standing.

"Damn!" I shouted when I saw her.

"Wait outside," Snake informed me.

"Oh, god," I complained, and stayed in the hallway.

_Later_

I heard a _bang!_ from inside of the room, and I turned the corner, seeing the doctor being dragged off by two soldiers. Snake came out of the room to get them, but they had gone; in their place came these odd soldiers in high-tech armor, followed by shadows that were definitely Heartless, which were mimicking their shape.

"FROGS!" Snake called to me.

"Heartless!" I called to Snake.

Snake came out of the room, shooting the soldiers and the Heartless; the soldiers went down, but the bullets had no effect on the Heartless, who ran toward him, clawing.

I ran forward, my keyblade materializing in my hand.

I hit one on the side of the head, and spun in 360 degrees, hitting the three others.

"Hold on!" Snake shouted at me. "Your weapon, the...key can effect some FROGS, but my bullets can't effect them?"

"Those weren't FROGS, or whatever you're talking about. The Heartless were just taking their shape. Didn't you notice the lack of weaponry?"

"Hmph," Snake snorted.

"Snake, lead on," I said. "We need to find the doctor."

As he said that, a laugh came out of nowhere. It started quietly, but grew until it was almost maddeningly loud.

A large _thing _fell from the ceiling. Raising up, I saw that it was a human attached to some sort of machine with four steel arms.

It laughed maniacally. "Hello, Snake!"

It shot a steel arm at us.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Snake dodged one way; I dodged another. The steel arm lodged itself into the floor, and I began hitting it with my keyblade, to no avail.

"What is this thing, Snake?" I asked as the arm pulled back to the beast.

"Laughing Octopus!" He shouted back, and ducked around the corner, shooting the monster a few times. It then pulled itself up into the ceiling and out of sight. "Come on!"

We ran to another section of hallway, and saw nothing.

"Where is it?" I asked, walking forward.

"STOP!" Snake yelled, as a section of wall next to me shifted slightly.

I held up my keyblade just in time to stop a hard strike to my chest. Snake shot the now-uncamouflaged Octopus a few more times while I used the keyblade to shove it against the wall. Once more, it pulled itself away.

"Octocamo," Snake muttered. "Try not to get yourself killed, kid."

We walked into another hallway, where I didn't move from Snake's side. Suddenly, he began shooting a random area of wall, which turned out to be the monster from before.

It fell to the ground, and there was a brief _hiss_ as the thing stood back up _without_ its' mechanical helmet.

It was a woman but she didn't seem to be right in the head; she talked about how she laughed at what she was afraid of. She came towards Snake and I, and Snake told me to stand back.

He quickly pulled a pistol, and before I could do anything, he put a clip into her chest.

"What the hell, Snake?"

He held up the pistol.

"Tranquilizer rounds." He put a finger to his ear, then pulled a small box from his pocket: cigarettes.

Suddenly, the box began to glow, and my keyblade materialized.

"What the-?" Snake wondered, and watched the pack rise into the air. I pointed my keyblade straight at the center of the box, and a beam of light shot from my weapon into the cigarette box, which had changed into a keyhole.

The glowing stopped, and the pack dropped into Snake's waiting hand.

After he lit up, he pulled another box from his suit, which turned out to be a small radio.

"Put the earphone on," he ordered.

"Hello?" I asked into the microphone.

"I've been listening to you," the distorted voice said. "From another dimension, fighting Heartless, obtained a keyblade. You need my help," the voice said, not giving me another option. "Keep this radio with you; it should work between dimensions. I will help you."

"What makes you think that I need help?" I asked indignantly.

"Can you even _get_ to another dimension by yourself?"

"No, I guess not," I admitted.

"Good. Leave Snake and go to the wire fence outside. You will find a portal there. Take it."

"Do I say 'thank you' now?"

The line clicked.

"I hate being hung-up on," I muttered.

"How did that go?" Snake asked.

"It seems that we will be parting ways now, Snake."

"Okay. Don't die if you can help it."

_Outside_

The voice had been right: the fence ended for about four feet and started again around a white-lighted portal, exactly like the one I had used to get here.

"Well, hopefully the next world I go to won't have this much excitement," I said to myself, and stepped through the portal as I heard nearby machine gun chatter.

_Through the Portal_

I materialized in front of a door in what seemed to be a Japanese school building.

"Oh, what the hell?" I asked the radio. "I can't even speak Japanese!"

"What do you mean?" The voice played dumb. "They speak the same as you in _every_ dimension! Now, walk through that doorway."

"Oh, screw it." I walked opened the door.

Inside, a brunette was pulling the clothes off of a red-head, while a gray-haired girl was looking _directly at me_. When the red-head saw me, she started screaming.

"Oh! Wrong room!" I shouted quickly.

I shut the door immediately, and I began to doubt hopefully at what I had seen.

In about a minute, though, the door opened, and the brunette stepped out. She was in a blue school uniform, and had yellow ribbons in her hair.

"What's the big idea!" She shouted. "This is a private club's room! You can't just go barging in like you own the place!"

"Sorry, miss," I responded. "I swear I didn't know!"

"Oh! Are you new?" She asked as she saw that, instead of a school uniform, I was wearing a dusty leather jacket and torn jeans, with equally-dirty boots. "An exchange student?"

"Oh, no, I'm a-" I was cut off as I stared behind the brunette, where I saw the grey-haired girl put a "shush" sign to her lips. "I mean yes!" I said quickly.

"Great! You're going to join our club-the SOS Brigade. I'm Haruhi, but you may address me as your lord and master."

"Um...great?"

"GREAT! Now, you stay out here while I'm dressing Mikuru. I'll get Nagato to tell you about the club!"

When Nagato was with me outside of the clubroom, she gave me a card, then made another "shush" sign, and went back inside of the club room.

I read the card:

"We need to talk. 21:00.

Street Address:-"

I quickly pocketed the note, and went on my way out of the school (which wasn't easy, considering the fact that I had just gotten to this _world_).

_21:00, Nagato's Apartment_

As I was buzzed into the elevator, I reflected on my day. Lounging in the park for hours wasn't much, but I _had _been able to rest for a while. For some reason, no Heartless had shown up in this world, and I hadn't been shown a portal out (or, for that matter, talked to the person through the radio), so I really was bored for a while. I realized that I needed some new clothes, but without this world's money, it was useless.

I knocked on Nagato's door, which was opened far too quickly for any person to even react to.

"Oh, hello, Nagato," I greeted as I shut the door.

"Sit," she greeted back.

"Sure." I sat on a cushion on the ground ('Weird practice,' I thought). "So, what does the SOS Brigade do, exactly?"

"That is not important," she said. I realized that she never used any emotion in her speech, no inflections whatsoever. "You are an outsider in our world."

"No crap. We established that at school."

"Incorrect. You established yourself as an 'exchange student.' You are an pan-dimensional traveler."

"What? That's insane!" I played on.

"That is incorrect. You are playing dumb."

"If I was a 'pan-dimensional traveler,' or whatever, how would _you_ know? I've barely seen you for a combined time of five minutes."

"I suppose that you have guessed that you are simply lucky to have evaded the Heartless for so long in one dimension."

"What? Heartless?" I was having trouble not revealing myself to the girl, who seemingly knew everything.

"This dimension is under the influence of the Data Integration Thought Entity, which supervises all entries into, and departures out of this world. Somehow, you bypassed all levels of awareness until you were within my sight."

"Oh...well, then. Will this Data-thing get me out of here."

"That is also...curious. It appears that you cannot leave, nor may you be simply voided. You have some function to perform in this universe."

"What is it?"

"I do not have access to that information. Only one other being can seemingly help you:

Haruhi Suzumiya."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

_The Next Day_

The next day I after school hours I joined the SOS Brigade, wearing a school uniform given to me by Nagato. I didn't want to hang around, but it appeared as if I didn't have a choice for the moment, as Haruhi seemed to hold my entire life in her hands. I had been told not to tell her about myself, but I knew nothing beyond that.

"Hello, new guy!" Haruhi called as I stepped in. "Meet the other members of the Brigade: you know Mikuru and Nagato, but these two," she pointed towards two guys, "are Kyon and Koizumi."

"Hello," I introduced myself. "I am Ianus."

They greeted me, and I sat down at the meeting table, of which Haruhi sat at the head.

"Okay, guys, down to business. Today, we need to scout Uptown for anything weird. I've heard of some spooky things going on over there, and now we have an even number of people to split into three groups!"

The rest of the club was "thrilled" at this news, as I spoke up.

"Are you sure that we can just go into town and poke around like that?"

Kyon looked down in a look that thoroughly said "Oh, shit."

"Are you trying to tell me what I can't do with MY club?" Haruhi yelled angrily.

"No, miss!" I answered quickly. "Sorry, ma'am!"

"Good!"

_Uptown_

I had been paired by Haruhi with Kyon, who seemed quite normal (in the best possible way). When we had traveled sufficiently far away from the other groups, Kyon stopped to sit on a bench.

"What about searching for weird happenings?" I asked him.

"Ianus, what are you here for?" He asked out of nowhere. "Are you some kind of supernatural being? A vampire, perhaps? Maybe even a werewolf?"

"Dude, chill. You need to lay down."

"I'm just wondering. I know that you've talked to Nagato alone, which could only bode for something weird. I _am _the only normal human inside of the SOS Brigade, after all."

"Why are you telling this to me?"

"Well, think about it: if you're normal, you'll think that I'm crazy, and leave the Brigade before something bad happens to you; if not, you may tell me about yourself."

I thought for a moment.

"I suppose that checks out; I'll tell you. I _am_ a normal human, but I'm an inter-dimensional traveler, of sorts. I'm trying to get my dimension back, after it was destroyed by monsters called the Heartless."

"Wait," Kyon interrupted. "Monsters that destroy entire dimensions? That sounds like-"

"Oh, don't worry, you don't have them here. That Nagato...girl said that some Date Entity keeps them out; somehow my portal in wasn't sensed, though."

"No," Kyon burst out. "You don't get it. I suppose Nagato didn't want to tell you, but Haruhi Suzumiya is in control of this universe. She has the power to create and destroy at will."

"Then it's _her_ holding me in this dimension?"

"Not consciously; she's entirely unaware of her abilities, so she couldn't be doing it at will."

"So what do I have to do to be let out of here?"

"I don't know; maybe you'll have to do something mundane, like pleasing Haruhi by going along with the Brigade; it could also be something drastically dangerous, such as-" He stopped, staring off in a certain direction. I followed his gaze, and saw a familiar face: Nagato, with Koizumi.

They came over to us, and Koizumi sat next to Kyon on the bench. Nagato just stood on the opposite side of the bench from me.

"I heard about your problem," Koizumi said. "It _is _a conundrum. You could be here for _decades_ before your requirement is met, even a century. It is really up to Miss Suzumiya."

The radio earphone clicked, and the voice said a single line in my ear:

"Tell Haruhi about yourself." It clicked out.

"So why don't I just _ask _for permission to go on with my way?"

"Because," Nagato butted in, "if you reveal yourself, any number of events may occur, most unpleasant for every being in this universe."

"What is the guarantee of that?" I asked. "What if I decide to ask her anyways, no matter the consequences?"

"Then I will be forced to exterminate you; Haruhi Suzumiya is unlikely to care enough to change anything. You will not be missed."

"That's stone cold, sister," I muttered.

_An Hour Later_

When Haruhi and Mikuru joined us at our rendezvous at the specified meeting time, I was prepared.

"Nothing!" Haruhi shouted. "This place is so boring!"

"Haruhi!" I shouted, confident that there would be no consequences. "I'm a slider! I'm traveling through dimensions to save my own!"

Haruhi stared at me in awe; everyone else (even Nagato's normally emotionless face seemed surprised) was shocked.

Suddenly, _Haruhi _started glowing. Everyone was freaking out about this, of course, but I knew what was going on.

"What's going on?" She shouted.

My keyblade appeared in my hand, and I shot the light into the center of Haruhi's uniform.

She passed out, and fell to the ground.

"Holy crap that was reckless!" Kyon shouted.

I ran away as fast as I could, because I had seen something that Kyon had not: the murderous look in Nagato's eyes.

I ran through the streets, knocking people down as I went. It didn't matter that I couldn't see Nagato; I knew that she could do _something_ horrible to me. It was when I was running through an alley that things turned to shit.

I suddenly stopped running, not of my own accord, but of something halting me, kind of like a pause button on me only.

"Oh, shit," I said, or meant to (It seemed that I couldn't speak), knowing the one person that could be responsible for this. I turned (it appeared that though I couldn't run, I could move in this one spot) to see Nagato, standing in the street, sun behind her.

"You should not have told Haruhi Suzumiya that," she said emotionlessly. "You will be terminated before you can cause any more issues."

I couldn't talk, or I would be yelling for help now. Nagato ran forwards faster than a human _could _have, and was only a couple meters from me, when suddenly I was surrounded by a glowing white light.

"What is this?" Nagato asked, seemingly annoyed.

The light surrounded me, and I was saved from death once more.

"_That_ was close," the radio's static-filled voice said into my ear, as my the light around me cleared.

_Back in Haruhi's Dimension_

"What was _that_?" Haruhi raised up. "Where did what's-his-name go?"

"I'm not sure," Kyon answered. "I don't even know where Nagato went when she chased after him."

"He said that he was a slider! You shouldn't have let him run off!" She scolded.

"You need to rest, Miss Suzumiya," Koizumi cut in. "You can find him later."

"Yes, I will," She resolved.

Nagato came around the corner.

'I will, too.'


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I appeared this time in a what appeared to be the middle of a large forum. There were a dozen or so stools around the circular room, all large and simple in design. It was midday, indicated by a sundial in the middle of the room.

"Where the hell am I?" I asked myself.

"You are in yet another dimension," the radio crackled. "Isn't _that_ obvious by now?"

"Shut up," I told the radio. It clicked off.

I went to the door and looked out on what appeared to be a large, flat courtyard, where a crowd was watching a procession of a dozen white-cloaked men lead a man with a cart to a slightly-raised podium.

"In Nomine Patris, et filius ," they chanted, "et Magna Venificus, nos hoc donavi obtuli in fides bene."

They then reached the podium, where the man with the cart proceeded to hand them glass bottles and plates of meat and bowls of something.

"We dedicate this meal to Magna Venificus, the Great Sorcerer, in return for our continued prosperity," the apparently-Head Priest preached, as the other eleven priests poured the wine and dumped the meat, along with blood from the bowls into two large cauldrons. "May he continue to bless us in our conquests!"

"VIVA OCCIDENS!" The gathered people shouted, and one of the cauldron's contents was set ablaze.

"May we also offer tribute to the gods and their sons, in exchange for the good health of all Occidentals, and the health of our allies."

"VIVA OCCIDENTALIS! VIVA SOCII!"

Just then, I was spotted by one of the priests as I still stood in the doorway of the temple.

"Who dares dishonor our shrine in such...odd clothing?" The priest pointed to me, and I noticed how the normal people dressed: the women in colorful dresses, the men in layered tunics and sheets of cloth. I looked down, and saw that I was still in the borrowed school uniform from Haruhi's dimension.

'Crap,' I thought.

Someone in the crowd angrily shouted, "He's an Ortusian! He's come to disgrace our celebration of victory over his country!"

The crowd suddenly started moving towards me, throwing objects and cursing me. I backed up, but couldn't run because there was nowhere to go; I had been standing in the only exit to the temple.

Just before the crowd got within striking distance, a man in a long brown robe jumped in front of me, shielding me from the mob.

"Sir militia-man," a priest called at the new-comer, "why do you protect the Ortusian?" He was not to be in our holy shrine, so aren't we enabled to come to blows?"

The soldier lowered the hood on his robe, which had red striped on the borders, revealing a man little older than I, with short brown hair and circular-framed spectacles.

"He's no Ortusian!" He responded. "You should be able to tell this! He wears not one insignia of the East; he would be known as a foreigner there as well as here."

"Are you sure?" Someone in the crowd asked.

"I'll tell you what," the soldier played along. "I will take him into custody myself, and question him on his origin." He turned to me, grabbed my arm, and placed a metal bracelet on my wrist. "Follow me." That was an order, I could tell.

_Five Minutes Later_

We had stopped on a side-street a couple of blocks away from the temple where we had started. This dimension was weird. They had cars, trucks, and other modern devices, but had no clocks, using sundials, and no modern shapes of buildings-all buildings here were eight to ten stories or less.

We sat on a bench, and the soldier removed the bracelet. Everything other than his booted feet and bespectacled head was covered by his robe, so I had no clue what weapons he had on him.

"So, where are _you_ from?" He asked me.

"From the South," I said quickly.

"An Ætheopian? No wonder your clothes are so weird." I had no clue what he was talking about, so I took his word for it. "What are you doing here?"

"Who _are_ you?"

"Oh! How rude of me not to introduce myself! I'm Maximillian, Sorcerer 2nd Class in the Magus Corps."

"So...you do magic?"

"You don't know?" Maximillian wondered, getting suspicious.

"I've heard the stories, but I've never seen it in action."

"Well, then, I'll have to show you sometime. For now, you should allow me to be your guide-you don't know what the people around here will try. You can come with me to the road out of here."

He lead me through the city, until we came to the edge of it all: no suburbs, no wall, just nothing except for farmland and a road that stretched as far as the eye could see.

"This road will take you where you need to go," he said, and turned to leave.

"Wait!" I called. "I didn't tell you where I was going, so how could you tell me to go one direction?"

"Huh. You catch on quick," he said, as he walked away. "Get out of town; you foreigners are nothing but trouble."

Suddenly, a cloud of black appeared in front of him with a _poof!_, and he was set on all sides by Heartless.

"What's this?" He shouted, as the Heartless charged at him, and my keyblade appeared in my hand.

"Look out!" I warned him, and there was a shuffling of movement as the heartless started reaching striking range.

He then threw off his robe, revealing leather-covered plates of armor covering his back and chest. Around his belt were two small books, and several scrolls.

As I set upon killing a couple of the Heartless, I heard a _fwoosh!_ as two flaming Heartless flew over my head. I looked at Maximillian, seeing him waving one arm in various directions, while using the other to hold up one of the small books that had been attached to his belt.

"Sica Fuego!" He shouted, striking down another Heartless in a bolt of fire; I put another out of its' misery by bringing down my keyblade upon its' head.

"Pugnus Zeus!" He recited, and a blast of electricity tore the final Heartless to pieces. Then he turned to me.

"It appears that there is more to you than I first suspected, _sir_."


End file.
